It is generally agreed that brothers Reginald (“Rheji”) and Ronald (“Rhano”) Burrell were almost singlehandedly responsible for creating the genre known as deep house. Considering the relatively poor critical reputation of the genre today, this might seem about as interesting as noting the pioneers of happy hardcore or psytrance. However, unlike other disreputable dance genres, deep house is overdue for a critical reappraisal. It is true that the genre very quickly evolved into slick, homogenized lifestyle music of the kind that filled yuppie lounges and upmarket clothing boutiques throughout the 90s. It is true that deep house was eventually indistinguishable from other outmoded buzz-genres such as acid jazz and tribal house. In spite of all unpleasant associations, deep house in its infancy was quietly revolutionary. It was a forward-thinking minimal dance music with decentered grooves, lackadaisical jazz solos, and deeply psychedelic production. And it was Rheji and Rhano — Jersey boys with a strong background in gospel music — who defined the deep house sound with a string of releases under various guises for NYC’s legendary Nu Groove label.
Nu Groove is best known for launching the careers of Bobby Konders and Joey Beltram, but the work of the Burrell brothers accounted for the bulk of the label’s releases between 1988 and 1992. Releasing a string of 12” cuts under a variety of project names including Tech Trax Inc, Metro, Houz’Neegroz, and Avant Garde, the sound of the Burrell brothers is defined by eclecticism and experimentation, ideas that often outstripped talent and technology, but never failed to make an impression. A press release by reissue label Rush Hour defines the sound as “house music with a sepia tint,” referring to the clunky, analog instrumentation and generous quotient of tape hiss that characterize the early Burrell records.
Perhaps the finest single document of the period is a concept EP by short-lived Rheji Burrell project N.Y. House’n Authority, entitled APT. Over the course of six tracks, Burrell constructs an imaginary three-story NYC walk-up, depicting the private lives of various residents. Each track is named for an apartment number (“APT. 1A,” “APT. 3B,” etc.), titles which cleverly mirror the naming conventions of vinyl tracks. The EP both embodies and makes literal the inner-city origins of house music, evoking cramped urban spaces in which public and private spheres overlap and interact.
The EP opens with the upbeat “APT. 1A,” a hard-driving minimal groove populated by a series of sequenced moans sampled from a porno. After catching the couple in 1A in flagranti, the EP shifts into a dark, melancholic territory where it will remain. The sampled strings of “APT. 2A” give way to the tense acid of “APT. 3A” and the spooky vocal stabs of “APT. 1B.” The detuned, lopsided jazz soloing of “APT. 2B” signals the final shift toward the quintessential deep house formula, a formula which would be further perfected by Burrell labelmate Bobby Konders on classic tracks such as “The Poem.” This prototypical deep house style reaches an early apex on the EP’s gorgeous, moody finale “APT. 3B,” featuring an ersatz flute solo that should be unbearably corny, but somehow manages to transcend.
Viewed as text, APT. is a fascinating intervention in the history of art that takes The City as its subject, not as metaphor, but as disunity. This complex of competing interests only becomes The City by virtue of a geographical continuity, just as the body only becomes The Body with reference to the space in which a collection of systems interact. In practice, both The Body and The City are random assemblages of competing desires capable of spontaneously producing moments of profound self-organization: the rhythm of everyday life.
